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Examining the Characteristics of Episodic Memory using Event-related Potentials in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: August 30, 2011
Examining pauses in Alzheimer's discourse
Boyd H Davis1, Margaret Maclagan
1University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina 28223, USA. boydhdavis@yahoo.com
American Journal of Alzheimer'S Disease and Other Dementias
|January 20, 2009
Summary
This study explores how pauses in speech, including filled pauses (like "ums") and silent pauses, serve crucial roles in conversation and narration for individuals with Alzheimer's disease. Pauses aid in word-finding, planning, and communication compensation as other skills decline.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Neurology
- Gerontology
Background:
- Speaker pauses, both filled and silent, are integral to conversational and narrative functions.
- In Alzheimer's disease discourse, pause-fillers can act as placeholders or hesitation markers.
- Understanding pause functions is key to analyzing communication changes in neurodegenerative conditions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the functional roles of filled and silent pauses in the discourse of individuals with Alzheimer's disease.
- To analyze changes in syntactic complexity, story retention, and pause patterns in speech extracts.
- To illustrate how pauses serve as word-finding aids, planning mechanisms, and pragmatic compensation strategies.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of speech extracts from four older women in the United States and New Zealand.
- Review of pauses for their functions in conversation and narration.
- Examination of syntactic complexity and retention of story components.
Main Results:
- Filled pauses function as placeholders and hesitation markers in Alzheimer's discourse.
- Silent pauses are utilized for word-finding, planning at various linguistic levels, and pragmatic compensation.
- These pause functions become more critical as other interactional and narrative skills diminish.
Conclusions:
- Pauses play a vital role in maintaining communication flow and coherence in Alzheimer's disease.
- The study highlights the adaptive strategies individuals employ through pausing to navigate communication challenges.
- Further research into discourse analysis can inform interventions for individuals with cognitive impairments.
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